I think I know what’s going on – basically, the problem is that you’re using a Mac.
No, that’s NOT a cheap shot at Macs. It’s basic reality – it’s fact.
The problem is that Macs have this problem of walking the dog EVERYWHERE they go. I found this out the hard way – my wife is *forced* to use a Mac at work (your tax dollars at work). She brought me some files she downloaded at work – on a USB “thumb” flash drive.
The files were a bunch of ZIP archives.
Oh, the Mac downloaded them alright. That wasn’t the problem.
The problem was that in *addition* to downloading them, it *also* EXPANDED them – silently, with no warning, with no concern about how much space it would take to hold the zips AND their contents.
But that’s not what’s causing YOUR woes (although it *does* set the stage, by demonstrating the mindset that went into designing Mac behavior).
YOUR problem (which was *my* OTHER problem, when dealing with what was done to that flash drive), is that whether it’s dealing with zips, or any *other* kind of file, the Mac has a *very* interesting habit of creating “shadow” files (which are, ON a Mac, apparently invisible to the user).
Each “shadow” file has the SAME name as the *real* file – but, farted around a bit (long extension, extra undercores, etc.) – and, is about 4KB.
Now, 4KB ain’t a whole lot of space – unless you’re talking about thousands of files – unless you’re in a scenario in which the good ol’ Mac is constantly sticking 'em where they’re not needed – and, never *deleted* (since they’re invisible to the Sansa TOO!).
But wait, there’s more! Every DISC (such as a flash drive – such as a Sansa) that the Mac touches will have installed onto it a *large* set of directories, subdirectories, indexing files, etc. I mean a LOT of ■■■■ that serves NO purpose whatsoever in the real world (other than eating up space and getting in the way), but, apparently the Mac NEEDS that ■■■■ just to keep track of what IT’S doing. That’s some FINE operating system, that NEEDS to take a dump every two steps just so that it can find its way out of the woods.
Anyway, I think that if you connect your Sansa to a *real* computer – in MSC (disc) mode – and make sure you tell it to let you see hidden and system files, and NOT hide extentions (because if I recall correctly,some of the Macturds are “extension-ONLY” filenames), you’ll quickly find out where all your storage went.
What you have is essentially a “virtual memory-leak” on your hands.
(Yeah, I dislike Macs. It’s nothing personal – I dislike ANYTHING that I have to constantly clean-up after. That thing has been on the market for quite a while now – it’s old enought that it should be toilet-trained by now. It’s not!)
